Video. Hathershaw/Fitton Hill. Oldham. August 2007. (48mins)
Oldham NDC commissioned REELmcr in late 2006 with the aim of breaking down some seemingly intractable barriers between communities divided along the lines of race. Cohesion work desperately needed doing as all the issues highlighted in the Ritchie Report, following the race riots, still needed a lot of work.
The first sessions began in 2007 and is no exaggeration to say that never have we worked with a group so divided along the lines of race. The antipathy between the Asian and White Working Class communities was often violently expressed and many thought the project would never succeed. Communities new to Oldham were added to the mix, including Eastern Europeans and Africans and the project became more and more cohesive. Week by week the participants returned, and little by little a story began to take shape, one in which the group saw they had common ground.
“Heart of the Park”, was the end result of months of difficult work, which resulted in this extra-ordinary ghost story. The film received an award for combating racism in Oldham, but more importantly the group are now a cohesive, united entity, who have remained friends, completed further projects and are currently being trained up as an film crew in their own right.
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